Fiction Archives

Vanessa, a short short story written in haste.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Life does not have to follow this road…there are a million turns and bends that it can take. I still don’t know why I’m here and what the hell I’m supposed to do. Take this lawn chair for instance. It’s just recycled earth. Some aluminum, some petroleum for the plastic…its just pieces of planet earth that have been here for eons So am I ! So are you.

…And I told him, the reason I can’t sit with you and talk rationally about where the company is heading is because I don’t speak the same language. I have no idea why we would spend a beautiful morning talking about fairy—tale crap. Its made-up, it doesn’t exist. Show me a business, I told Larry. Show it to me. It's an idea. Its just a bunch of bored unhappy people accomplishing meaningless tasks in hopes for a few more nickels. There’s no substance.
He opened his mouth wide and a buzzing sound emanated from the portal where most of the lies spill from. It was a swarm of bees listening to talk radio on tiny little head sets. It was a milkshake machine churning twigs and mud. I was told that that there is a specific skill set that my position needed and I barely fit. I needed to increase my personal career path and burp, burp, shit shit.
I also told this to Marlene, in front of her house one day because he asked why I was talking to myself in my yard. I almost cried when I told her. A grown man crying to a woman who was old enough to be his mother. It was shame and frustration and bad nachos for lunch.

Larry, I said, I want to die every time I have fun here. It wasn't personal, it was the truth. And most people chalk it up to my failures. It's as if I’m upset for not making something out of my life. Its not, I swear. And truth is all I have, Larry.
It’s that we ALL are doing this stuff. The meetings and memos and cake in the conference rooms and corporate holidays ands motivation plans. Office Space wasn’t a comedy, it was a documentary. I thought it was the saddest piece of filmmaking I’ve ever seen.
You make me sick I wanted to say, but he left long before all of this. He left after I told him I had no reason to show up to the meeting downtown.
I don’t fit in and I don’t belong and I’m proud. Its been entirely too long that we've lived the lives of gerbils spinning wheels for plastic pellets.
I sit and listen to the rain tapping my plastic skylight window. There is a baseball game on but I've yet to determine who’s playing who. It doesn’t matter. Baseball can be the background. Most of the time is that type of sport. I sat for a few minutes looking at some books of mine that aren’t arranged in any particular order on a shelf I had to put together. I think it was IKEA but I’m not sure. My books are bent paperbacks and a few hardcovers I got on sale. I think not of the stories contained inside but the people who put them in there and are making money because of this.
Even a book, as cold and lifeless as it could possible be on a shelf is more wonderful that the shit I shovel everyday. At least there was a stab at the unknown. The author tries for a taste of the truth or what they were passionate about for a few months. Someone bought it. I bought it. They get to buy groceries and pay rent and own a car because they thought of something another human would enjoying reading. My head begins to feel the heat just over my temples again. I step into the living room to watch baseball.
I pour a glass of Riesling into a souvenir glass from a co-worker’s bachelor party. It says: Carl 2003.
I can’t for the life of me remember who the hell Carl was.
There was a woman who worked here named Vanessa I was desperately in love with. I can say that because it was my heart and mine alone who knew this. My sister would say I was only attracted to her because she stood out among the small group of women I was forced to look at everyday. Not true. She was wonderful no matter the day, circumstance or amount of beer.
I fell in love with her at a company get together at that hellhole down the street that thinks its Chili's or TGI whatever’s. It's really a low rent Hooters with a good happy hour and tolerable waitresses. Anyway, Mark pulled me down there and I was hungry as hell so I trudged along in dire need of a sandwich that wouldn’t make my stomach explode or give me atomic gas.
Vanessa was there with her friend and I swear to you on the ghost of Ted Williams as my witness it was as if I was in high school all over again. The giggling, chatting and even the same damn jokes. But who cares about all that. I just listened to Vanessa from my booth; right next to hers. I had to listen to Mark make dumb ass comments but with a tuned ear I tried to catch what she was saying to the other cacklers over there. I loved her voice. It wasn’t squeaky and skittish, it was a little more womanly than girly. I’m drawn to that. She answered a question in a way I'll never forget, just as I’ve never forgotten her voice, and that beautiful red dress she wore on occasion.
We asked by one of the knuckleheads over there what she would wish for when granted three wishes, she almost immediately answered: “I wish I never wanted to wish for everything.” It was perfect. That statement could be taken two ways, and I will list them here.
1) She wished for complete contentment, which implies she would have everything she’d ever wanted. Which is quite materialistic while still remaining clever. Sexy and exciting but…that is not what I heard.
2) I heard: I wish I had no desire.
Can you achieve anything closer to Zen than that? In this flavored toothpick, designer cell phone, take no prisoners bullshit society. Is there nothing more pure than saying: “I don’t need” and actually meaning it? It’s everything! She’s impervious to advertising and envy and greed and all the things that keep the economy pumping and choking out brown smoke. She is above it and past it. Past it!
I was in love. I sipped a beer and munched on some lukewarm fries and listened to Mark yammer through his hot wings, but I loved her, and I knew it. She left the company about six weeks later and took with her one of the purest moments I could remember.

A excerpt from Things To Do When You're Alive, a novel.

August 22, Interstate 40, Arizona. 72 mph.

A griddle. A toaster oven. A volcanic table of wavy lines and searing, God-awful heat. It was barely eleven in the morning and Vic learned of the one major drawback of his seemingly flawless and manly car.
The air conditioning sucked.
Sure, it was adequate if he were driving through anything less intense than the surface of the sun, but this was the western edge of Arizona in August. No clouds, no shade and no hopes of an icy pool and three hundred ice cream cones until Flagstaff.
His stomach was in knots because of the pre-wrapped breakfast sandwich he bought back at the Union 76. He washed it down with scorched coffee. Only fifty miles away, when the mass turned into a rock in his gut did it dawn on him: I think I can afford to make better choices at breakfast.
Vic slugged down some bottled water and the fatigue of desert driving took over., He also bought another driving CD. Three full cycles of Lynyrd Skynryd were enough. Next up was a four dollar collection Hank Williams, and Sly and the Family Stone’s Greatest Hits.
Between pained county-fried echoes of loss and bass-riddled celebrations of life, Vic tweaked with the air and window, settling on a half and half mixture. In his efforts to relax and let go, his mind wandered. It was years since he had a meaningful conversation. By design, he kept most topics to weather, sports, food and drinking. It was much easier at the Guevara’s and Tina was no intellectual challenge unless you included gossip column lives of Lindsay Lohan or Jen Aniston.
He was lonely. As lonely as you can be when you are shut off from the rest of the world in a room full of noisy Tex-Mex soccer freaks in a town where it is as tough to find the smart crowd as it is to find ahi sushi. Now that Vic was gone like the proverbial bat out of hell, he could not remember what it was like to be young, smart-mouthed and free. What happens when I meet a girl again? When was the last time I read a paper?